Suggested Personalized Itinearies in Paris

• Half day
- Panoramic Drive - showing you all the main sites and neighborhoods. A must for the first-time visitor.

You will see:
Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysées, Trocadéro, Tour Eiffel, Invalides, Concorde, Madeleine, Opéra, Vendôme, Louvre, Notre-Dame, and Montmartre.  

Ancient Lutetia to the medieval town (Cluny, Cité, Notre-Dame).

Classical Paris Vendôme, Invalides, Concorde) to the big works of Baron Haussmann (Opera-Garnier, the Boulevards).

19th century Paris (Eiffel tower, Orsay, Sacré Cœur)

Modern Paris (Pompidou center, Glass pyramid of the Louvre) you will travel through two thousand years of history and architecture. Include the itinerary above, but have time to enjoy a visit inside the Louvre or go up the Eiffel tower and lunch in a very Parisian brasserie or follow our guide's suggestion according to your tastes.

You can combine your city tour with an inside visit of a museum or a monument.

If you are a regular visitor your guide will suggest many less familiar places such as le musée de La Vie Romantique, Cognac Jay, the house of Balzac, Zadkine, Gustave Moreau…

Paris Illumination Tour
From dusk to midnight, marvel at the evening lighted monuments and the lively night districts of Paris. The well nicknamed "city of lights" has installed new sophisticated indirect lighting systems with halogen that give more contrast to the architectural details over the bridges, the Louvre, Concorde square, the façade of Notre-Dame.

 

Special themed full day tours :

Paris Art Deco :
Private tour of Chaillot theatre, Le Corbusier Foundation, Musée des années 30 in Boulogne and lunch at Le Bœuf sur le Toît…

Ecole de Paris :
Paris museum of Modern Art or Pompidou center, Zadkine house, Montparnasse museum and lunch at La Coupole.

Other ideas:

• Paris Architecture & Monuments

• Shopping in Paris

• Art and Antiques in Paris

• Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle & Chartres

•The Gardens of Paris

•In the Steps of Napoléon

•In the Steps of Victor Hugo

•Baron Haussmann's Paris

Suggested Personalized Itineraries Close to Paris

GIVERNY

• While driving you along the Seine river valley to the village in Normandy where Claude Monet lived from 1883 to 1926, your guide will retrace the painter's life and his sources of inspiration.
   
• You will then visit his house and studio and the gardens he created as a subject for his paintings. See the ponds and the Japanese
idges built with a lock on the tiny Epte river for the Water Lilies series.
   
• Drive back on a scenic road overlooking the Seine river valley and cross beautiful landscape and charming villages.

VAUX LE VICOMTE

• Vaux was the tragic setting for the downfall of Fouquet, a faithful minister who paid the price of life imprisonment, accused of an embezzlement he did not commit, victim of the jealousy of king Louis XIV.

• Vaux was a haven for leading French artists. Writers, poets, painters and sculptors gave the best of their talents to the glory of Vaux.

• A preserved genuine masterpiece of French 17 century art. The architect, decorator and gardener who created Vaux-le-Vicomte are the same who will create Versailles.

FONTAINEBLEAU - BARBIZON

• With its richness, complexity and power to surprise, the magnificent castle of Fontainebleau sums up the history of France.

• From Francis I (the castle was his favorite residence) to Napoleon III, each sovereign left a unique mark on the structure and its grounds.

• Return through the forest and stop at the typical village of Barbizon which inspired landscape painters such as Corot and Millet.

AUVERS-SUR-OISE

• A true immersion in the pictorial art of the last century, Auvers enchanted first Daubigny, Corot and Daumier (as proved by Daubigny's studio-house), to subsequently attract the major names of Impressionism. Apart from the château, where you are invited on a 'Voyage to the time of the Impressionists', you can immerse yourself in the unique atmosphere of the period at the Auberge Ravoux which put up Van Gogh before his death in 1890. Today one can see his miraculously preserved room and a museum devoted to him.

CHARTRES

• Chartres boasts the most beautiful and the largest cathedral in Europe. Triple masterpiece of French Gothic Art : by the architecture, the sculpture, and the superb 13th century stained glass windows. (their surface extends over more than 3000 square yards).

• Walk through the old town where beautiful houses line the paved streets. Several "hillocks" lead down towards the Eure valley with its old mills, and bridges.

CHANTILLY

• Marvelous site, the Domain of Chantilly includes the Castle with the Condé museum (first private painting collection in France, furniture, library), the park, unique because of the diversity of its different historical gardens and its varieties of trees, the hippodrome, the forest.

• The Musée Vivant du Cheval is housed in the most beautiful stables in the world, the Great Stables of the Princes of Condé, an architectural work of art of the 18th century

• ‘Le Parc de la Faisanderie' (The Pheasant park) This magical garden has been revived recently with several re-creations: the Prince's' kitchen garden, orchard, fantasy garden, a unique hen house with 20 different
eeds and some 'ornamental gazebo' sheltering pigeons presented by ‘style': curly, peacock, fantail, capuchin … a delight for young kids and adults too.

March - April ‘Daffodil Festival’ :
Like during the time of the Great Condé, himself a huge collector of flowering bulbs, 100,000 daffodils, narcissi, irises and 3000 tulips will announce the arrival of spring. Daffodils will appear like a veritable yellow river flowing into the pond of this ravishingly romantic garden.

SENLIS

• Senlis is an exquis/ite little town, with narrow cobbled streets, ancient buildings and beautiful churches

The old town is a preserved area, where efforts have been made to preserve and restore the built heritage, some buildings dating back to the XIIth century. A number of films and costume dramas have been shot here.

The cathedral is one the earliest example of early Gothic style, and there are churches and other religious buildings at every corner, as the Bishopric of Senlis was extremely influential until the French Revolution. For a long time Senlis was also a Royal Residence: King Hugues Capet (founder of the powerful Capetian dynasty in 987) was crowned there, Louis VI re-built the Castle in the XIIth century, while Saint Louis built the Saint Maurice Priory.

There is a lively street market every Tuesday and Friday morning. Calèche rides, starting from the Cathedral, are a great way to explore the medieval centre, and to soak up the atmosphere.

You are here in the heart of Royal Picardie, close to Chantilly, Compiègne, and Pierrefonds and their majestic forests. Senlis is still home for or a nice day out for many posh Parisians (Paris is only 35 miles away).

MALMAISON

• The 17th-century Château de Malmaison was the little love-nest of Napoleon and Josephine. It houses an extraordinary collection of Empire furniture, Napoleonic art objects and decors created by the architects Percier and Fontaine.

HOUSES OF PAINTERS AND WRITERS IN-ILE-DE-FRANCE

• André Derain house
Creator of "Fauvism" with Matisse and Vlaminck, Derain's studio remains as it was in his life time, inside a beautiful 17th century house.

• Alexandre Dumas's castle of Montechristo
Dwelling of Alexandre Dumas built in 1846, the castle stands in the middle of an English garden, with caves, cascades and rockery, facing the château d'If. Visit of the Moorish living room and evocation of the writer's life.

• Maison Fournaise
This restaurant still in activity is located on the island of the Impressionists on the Seine river and was immortalized by Renoir in his famous "Déjeuner des Canotiers".

• "Le Prieuré": Maurice Denis' house in Saint-Germain en-Laye.
Visit this beautiful 17th century mansion which became the home of Maurice Denis in 1914. A museum was created in 1980, devoted to the Symbolists, the Nabis (of which Maurice Denis was the leading figure), Post-Impressionists such as the Pont-Aven group and other avant-garde movements of the late 19th century.

• Musée Utrillo-Valladon
Only museum in the world devoted to the painter Maurice Utrillo; he painted there more than 150 canvases of which some belong to his best period, "the white period".

FOLLIES, FABRICS, WONDROUS CONSTRUCTIONS AND ANGLO-CHINESE GARDENS.

• Marie Antoinette's Dairy and the Shell cottage in Rambouillet.

On the grounds of the Rambouillet Château, you will come across the Shell Cottage with its walls covered in shells and mother-of-pearl. Further on is the Queen's Dairy built by Louis XVI for Marie-Antoinette.

• La Maison Picassiette
The Maison Picassiette in Chartres is a house decorated, inside and out, with pieces of crockery and china. Raymond Isidore who was a graveyard sweeper by day, devoted 30 years and 15 tons of crockery to this project. It is a classified monument and an unusual example of Naive Art.

• Le Parc de Jeurre
In the park of Jeurre, discover the four most famous fabics created at Méréville by Hubert Robert for the Marquis de Laborde, banker of Louis XV.

• La pagode de Chanteloup
Of Chinese inspiration but in the purest Louis XVI style, the pagoda of Chanteloup is unique of its kind. It is 44 meters high and from the top you can enjoy a remarkable view of the Loire valley and Amboise forest.

• Le Cyclop de Jean Tinguely

Like a totem in the form of a huge cyclopean head sparkling with mirrors and traversed with footbridges and mezzanines, the work of Swiss sculptor Jean Tinguely in association with 15 internationally renowned artists, rises in the midst of the Fontainebleau forest.